Monday, November 24, 2014

I hope not for Romania's sake

We shall have to wait and see what the election of Klaus Iohannis will actually mean for Romania as they have not had a great deal of joy with previous Presidents. There is something ominous about the comparisons being made between him and Barack Obama.

Iohannis is Romania's newly-elected president.

After his surprise win on Sunday (16 November), when the German-speaking, Lutheran mayor of Sibiu became the first Romanian president from an ethnic and religious minority, he is being compared to Barack Obama - the first black president of the US.

On Facebook, he has just passed 1.1 million fans, more than German leader Angela Merkel or Italy’s Matteo Renzi.

But despite his popularity, he is neither a populist, nor, like Obama, a gifted orator.

In his victory speech on Monday, Iohannis, a 55-year old physics teacher, was as down-to-earth as it gets, his main message being: “The campaign is over. Let's get to work now”.

That does not sound like too bad a speech to me.

Obama populist and gifted orator. How very nostalgic. Nobody can possibly believe either of those statements any more. President Obama is highly unpopular as the latest mid-term elections showed and it has long ago been recognized that he is lot without his teleprompter.

In fact, given that Barack Obama is turning out to be one of the worst Presidents the United States has ever had it is to be hoped that Romanian President Iohannis will not emulate him in any way.

Let us not forget that, unlike President Obama, President Iohannis is a member of our real government.